Democracy and the Successful Use of Economic Sanctions

Abstract

Most analysts argue that economic sanctions are a relatively poor policy tool. In this article I build on a theoretical framework which has the leaders of states being primarily interested in retaining office dometically. Because of this, leaders of some states (i.e., democracies) can effetively tie their hands internationally by using aggressive foreign policy actions. I argue that democracies should be, on average, more successful when using economic sanctions because of the signaling properties of sanctions. This hypothesis is tested using ordered probit analysis of 81 bilateral sanctions episodes from 1914 to 1989. The hypothesis is cofirmed even when controlling for the known correlates of sanctions sucess and other potentially confounding factors (relative power, f. ex.). This finding suggests that we can expand our theoretical expectations on the links between domestic politics and international relations.